Kitz eyes commercial software to coordinate US Army firepower

Sur le même sujet

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  14 juin 2019 | International, Naval

  UK seeks new technologies for future Royal Navy fleet

  By Hemanth Kumar and Talal Husseini The UK Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is set to launch a new competition to seek intelligent systems and technology solutions to develop a comprehensive future Royal Navy fleet. Known as ‘Intelligent Ship – The Next Generation', the competition will be officially launched in London on 19 June. Through the competition, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) is looking for proposals for novel and innovative projects to facilitate the wider use of intelligent systems within future warships. The MOD said in the competition document: “This aim is based on a future vision where elements of automation, autonomy, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are closely integrated and teamed with human decision makers. “It is expected that this will ensure timely, more informed and trusted decision-making and planning, within complex, cluttered, contested and congested operating and data environments.” DASA will offer £1m in funding for innovative proposals under the first phase of the future Royal Navy fleet competition. An additional £3m will be made available to fund subsequent phases. The adoption of advanced technologies is seen as a pivotal move in the efforts to reduce decision times in order to meet future threat capabilities. Interested companies will have to showcase through their proposals how they would improve automation, autonomous functions, and AI-enabled decision aides. The scope also includes demonstrating how the proposals could improve speed and/or quality of decision-making and mission planning in a future naval operating environment. The MOD clarified that it does not want proposals that do not “offer significant benefit to defence and security capability”, or “offer no real long-term prospect of integration into defence and security capabilities”, or “offer no real prospect of out-competing existing technological solutions”. The MOD went on to say: “It is important that over the lifetime of DASA competitions, ideas are matured and accelerated towards appropriate end-users to enhance current or future capability. “How long this takes will be dependent on the nature and starting point of the innovation. Early identification and appropriate engagement with end-users during the competition and subsequent phases are essential.” Parties will have time until 23 July 2019 to pitch their ideas for the competition. https://www.naval-technology.com/news/uk-future-royal-navy-fleet/

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  30 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial

  Saab trials 3D-printed part on Gripen for battlefield repairs - Skies Mag

  Saab successfully conducted a trial which marked the first time an exterior 3D-printed part has been flown on a Gripen.

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  1 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Air Force paints a digital future where data from satellites play central role

  by Sandra Erwin In a few months the Air Force will start a series of experiments to try to connect fighter aircraft and other weapon systems into a single network so they can all share critical data and intelligence, much of which is collected by satellites in space. Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, described the venture as the “first demonstration of what you could call ‘step 1' of ABMS.” ABMS is short for Advanced Battle Management System, and it is a hard concept to explain because it is not like a traditional piece of hardware or software. It can be best described as a network where data is piped in from sensors located in space, at sea, in the air or on the ground. That information would be instantly analyzed with artificial intelligence tools and shared across the network. This is the type of technology that will “allow us to be more collaborative,” Roper told reporters at the recent 2019 Air Space & Cyber symposium. Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein is “driving this idea across the Air Force,” said Roper. Goldfein has been a champion of ABMS and wants to make it a “large dollar item in our 2021 budget,” said Roper. The thinking is that the Air Force will spend less money on shiny new platforms and more on exploiting data and advanced networks. It would be like the “Internet of Things, but applied to military systems,” said Roper. Air Force leaders initially pitched the ABMS idea to Congress two years ago as a vision of the future where access to timely data is key to success in the battlefield. They suggested that the Air Force should invest in ABMS rather than spend billions on new command-and-control airplanes. Congress gave the plan a skeptical reception but the Air Force will continue to press its case. In a keynote speech at Air Force Association's Air Space & Cyber conference last week, Goldfein described the future as one of “multi-domain operations” where all weapons and military forces receive up-to-the-minute intelligence and are able to share that data, something that ABMS would make possible. “What I'm talking about is a fully networked force where Air Force paints a digital future where data from satellites play central role each platform's sensors and operators are connected,” said Goldfein. While the concept seems straightforward, putting it into practice is not. One of the challenges is how to handle the vast amounts of data available from satellites and the infrastructure required to bring this data to the ground, analyze the data and then transport it to where it's needed. Some of the crucial technologies that will enable ABMS or any similar efforts will come from the world of commercial space and cloud computing. The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has recognized this as it pursues a project called CASINO, short for Commercially Augmented Space Inter Networked Operations. CASINO is a spinoff of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Blackjack program that is attempting to demonstrate the military utility of small satellites in low Earth orbit. SMC has made CASINO one of its signature efforts to show how commercial technology could be used to process and distribute data from large LEO constellations. The Pentagon's Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit on Sept. 10 awarded a contract of undisclosed value to Ball Aerospace and Microsoft to demonstrate cloud processing capabilities in support of the CASINO project. The companies will have to show how simultaneous, worldwide data streams from large, distributed constellations of small satellites can be processed quickly using Microsoft's Azure cloud and Ball Aerospace algorithms. This is about making satellite data more actionable more quickly, Azure Global vice president Tom Keane said. One of the questions this project seeks to answer is “what would it take to completely transform what a ground station looks like, and downlink that data directly to the cloud?” Keane said. Perhaps one option is to place electronically steered flat panel antennas on the roof of a data center to connect multiple LEO satellites. Ball Aerospace algorithms in this project will process data streams from up to 20 satellites. With the data in the cloud, customers can direct it to where it's needed. Clearly, there is a long way to go to achieve what Goldfein calls the “Air Force That We Need” — one where all U.S. and allied forces are connected and get relevant information quickly. But you have to start somewhere. https://spacenews.com/air-force-paints-a-digital-future-where-data-from-satellites-play-central-role/